behind his eyes.
Heat poured through the vents, but the warmth seemed incapable of killing the chilling dampness that flooded the interior of the car.
Michael massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers, a futile attempt to relieve the pressure. But the pain and pressure remained, the intensity increasing with each passing minute.
The headache had started during cocktails and continued on through dinner. The crush of the crowd and the overly loud music at the benefit dinner hadn’t helped matters. At one point, he had excused himself from the head table and gone to the men’s room. He hadn’t wanted to take anything, willing himself to withstand the pressure. A punishment of sorts, a condemnation of his carelessness. There was no getting around the feeling that the fall while rock climbing had been a stupid mistake.
Disgusted, he shook his head. World-class climber and he’d fallen on a simple rock face he’d climbed a million times before without incident. A disastrous climb that had resulted in the death of one of his good friends. Served him right that he suffered from headaches.
But recriminations were useless and he had realized that during dinner. In the end, he had relented, downing two painkillers his physician had given him after the accident, acutely aware that he had a speech to deliver.
Unfortunately the medication had produced no noticeable change, and he had ended up losing time while in the men’s room.
Blank time. A yawning space of emptiness.
For how long, he wasn’t sure. Twenty minutes? A half hour? An hour? All he remembered was standing over the sink in the cold stark bathroom, fighting a sucking, clawing pit of pain that had seemed determined to pull him under.
When he finally returned to the table, he was relieved that no one commented on his absence. Mainly due to the fact that they were all feeling pretty good, well into their third or fourth bottle of wine.
So, he had sat down and picked up where he’d left off, thinking to himself that it was as if time had stood still for a brief second.
“Looks like trouble up ahead, sir,” his driver’s voice broke over the intercom, interrupting Michael’s thoughts.
He sat up and hit the switch lowering the tinted window between himself and Alex. Shifting forward, he peered out the windshield. Trouble indeed.
Halfway down the block, directly in front of his newly renovated town house, the harsh glow of police lights flashed in the thick fog. Several patrol cars, an ambulance and a black van were double-parked, and men in uniform flitted in and out of the thick shroud of fog blanketing the narrow street and sidewalk. Something was definitely up.
“Wonderful,” Michael muttered under his breath.
“Want me to just cruise by, sir? Take you on out to the house in the Hamptons?”
For a brief moment, Michael actually considered telling Alex to do exactly that—cruise by, take the bridge and head out to his place on the island. Ignore the whole damn thing. But as soon as the thought flashed into his brain, Michael knew that wasn’t the answer.
As weary as he was at the thought of suffering another go round with the NYPD, running was not the answer. He needed to deal with whatever waited for him a few feet away. Time to find out what had brought the police to his doorstep for a fourth time in less than six months.
The thought made the pain in his head shoot up another few notches.
“They know my license plate, Alex, and as enticing as your offer is, I’m going to have to talk to them sooner or later.” He slid across the seat to the door. “Just pull up.”
He reached for the door handle, prepared to climb out. Of late, he’d gotten pretty good at dealing with the police. They might not believe a word he said, but up to this point, he hadn’t been arrested for anything.
A part of him wondered why no arrest. With all that had occurred over the past six months, even he was starting to have doubts about his innocence.
Alex slid the limo up next to one of the double-parked patrol cars and stopped. He started to get out to come around and open the door for him, but Michael laid a hand on his shoulder. “Take the car and go on home. I’ll handle this.”
Alex turned and leaned an arm on the shelf between the front and the back of the limo. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you, sir?”
Michael shook his head. “No, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early.”
He grabbed the door handle and climbed out, cringing as his foot hit a partially frozen puddle. The thin ice broke and frigid water sloshed over the sides of his shoes and dampened the hem of his pants. Great. One more thing to cap off a lousy evening.
The fog parted, allowing Michael to see the front of his house. Yellow crime scene tape cordoned off the area and a tight circle of uniformed cops milled around. When they spotted him, they parted, allowing him access to the front of his home. There was no missing the veil of ill-concealed anger in their eyes.
As he stepped up onto the curb, Michael stopped short. The ringing in his ears and the ache between his eyes increased to the point of almost blinding him
A woman hung nailed to his front door, a ski pole jammed through the upper left side of her chest, a bright red stain spreading across the front of her skintight, white lace dress. Adrenaline hit Michael’s bloodstream with a thundering rush.
Although her head hung forward, her luxurious chestnut-brown hair limp and her chin resting on her narrow chest, Michael had no difficulty recognizing her—Corinna Hamish, a former girlfriend.
There was no question that she was dead. The killer had shoved the pole up under her rib cage. The blood was dark and rich on the white lace.
In a daze, Michael moved closer. Anger ripped through his body, settling deep in the pit of his belly. How could this have happened again? How could another person he cared for been murdered and then left like a piece of discarded refuse on his doorstep?
He stared in disbelief, rage replacing confusion. This was the fourth victim in less than six months, and all the deaths were connected in some way to him. All the victims had been women he had known or dated. All women he’d cared about in some deeply personal way.
No wonder the police wouldn’t leave him alone. It was as if the killer was leaving behind these grisly messages just for him. Messages he didn’t understand or grasp no matter how hard he tried.
He stared at the metal spear stabbing her chest. He instinctively knew that the police would link the pole to him. Probably part of his skiing and climbing gear stored in the basement. As with the previous murders, the killer had set him up, implicated him in the crime.
He braced himself, preparing for the ordeal that he knew lay ahead. The three previous interrogations following the earlier murders had been grueling. The sight of Corinna’s body told Michael that he’d soon be dealing with the same thing all over again.
“Getting to be quite a habit, isn’t it, Emerson—” a deep edgy voice said from behind, “—you and I meeting over the murdered bodies of your ex-girlfriends.”
Michael turned, not in the least surprised to find NYPD Detective John Denner standing behind him. His big hands
